With Ossie and Ruby

Married for half a century, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee look back on the years they spent building a marriage alongside two demanding careers. Both are well known on the American stage, on television and in film, and both are admired as much for their craft as for their work in the civil rights movement, their attention to family life, and their commitment to Black communities. Their combined body of work earned each of them a Presidential Medal for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts.

The story begins in Harlem, where the two were young actors working in the Black theater scene, and continues through their rise to Broadway and Hollywood. Along the way they recall the places they have been and the many people they have met, in anecdotes that show a practised storyteller's ease after decades in the public eye.

The tone shifts between humor and seriousness. They describe the effort of keeping a family together at a time when scandal and divorce were common, and what it meant to be working artists and political activists during an era of sharp racial tension. Shaped by the collisions of life, politics and art, they came to understand their own worth as spouses, friends and lovers.

The book is meant for readers of every background, gender and age. It sets aside the public image, media attention and mystique surrounding the two performers to speak plainly about the practical difficulties and rewards of their lifelong search for purpose and value.